Helping India's Animals: Battles and Victories

by Dr. Michael W. Fox
Consultant to India Project for Animals and Nature
Global Communications for Conservation, Inc. New York, New York

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As the Fates would have it, I have lost my wife, Deanna Krantz, to India. She has been working there most of the time since 1996 under conditions that even by Indian standards are considered at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. She has water which is often "brown" during monsoons or the dry season, but no shower; a roof but rats and rat poop fall on her bed at night; and on one occasion even a cobra fell from the rafters. She has been victim of people who saw India Project for Animals and Nature (IPAN), which she directs, as a threat.

When you are engaged in corrupt activities like exploiting tribal peoples, forest resources, and animals wild and domesticated, a project like IPAN coming into your feifdom will be unsettling. So you bribe the police, which is common practice, to harass my wife, and you file false charges against her. When she continues her work, providing emergency animal care, humane education, free dog spay-neuter program and veterinary services in a region of south India where there are no adequate veterinary services for some 8,000 cattle, 4,000 sheep and goats, and 2,000 dogs, you launch a disinformation campaign amongst the villages and tribal settlements. Few people anyway can believe that anyone could be so altruistic as she and not have some ulterior, pecuniary motive.

But Deanna continues undaunted and by sheer dedication, winning the trust of indigenous peoples who see what miracles appropriate veterinary care can accomplish. Even during episodes of sickness, despair, and sheer exhaustion, she continued the work for the animals. An outbreak of rabies in two villages; an epidemic of foot and mouth disease that left calves and cows crippled wtih their feet infested with maggots; scores of malnourished dogs and pups with mange and rickets, and calves with worms, diarrhea and pneumonia. In addition to running a 24-hour treatment program, often finishing up in some remote tribal settlement at 2:00 a.m. for her Indian veterinarian to do a Caeserian on a cow, she kept up with the rabies and distemper vaccination schedules from village to village. The strength of local support for IPAN is attested by the elected village (Panchayet) government authorities having given her a building to serve as a community animal hospital and for her dog spay-neuter program. Her dedicated field assistant, Nigel Otter, has given over Hill View Farm which, after some basic renovation, now serves as IPAN's staff quarters and as a refuge for many dogs, some cattle, and over sixty donkeys. These animals came from the defunct Nilgiri Animal Welfare Society's (NAWS) "animal sanctuary" across the river from the farm animal refuge.

The NAWS animal sanctuary used to serve the community with stables for abandoned livestock and a free dispensary. But after the death of its founder, Dorothy Dean, in 1974, the Society ceased to function and the Sanctuary fell into disrepair, becoming a place of animal neglect, cruelty and suffering, along with a variety of unethical and illegal activities. Deanna's attempts to restore this sanctuary and legally reconstitute the NAWS's management in accordance with the bylaws of this registered charity that for years had received donations from the U.S., resulted in the first wave of opposition against IPAN and against her in person. This increased from other quarters the more she learned about other illegal and corrupt activities that short-changed tribal peoples and put wildlife at risk in the surrounding 260 square-mile Mudamalai Wildlife Sanctuary. This region in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, S. India, has the largest remaining elephant population left on the subcontinent and also viable populations of tiger, panther and wild dogs or dhole. The region has been designated a United Nations Biosphere Reserve.

By her sheer presence, knowledge through informants, and by direct witness and video-taping of much of what is endangering this Biosphere Reserve, Deanna is, as a foreign presence, a clear threat to some: And an important ally, if not the last hope, for the many people who are coming to her now to seek her support in helping save the last of the wild in this most beautiful and relatively remote part of India. Her on-the-spot photos of an elephant, for example, who had been illegally electrocuted by a land owner's high-charged field fence, provided essential documentation to mobilize government action to better protect the endangered elephant population.

I am even more amazed at how much IPAN has accomplished since its inception in April 1996, knowing the time-consuming daily frustrations of working there, with support staff never being able to keep to reliable work hours, frequent power failures and no telephone especially during the monsoons, plus sudden shortages of kerosene and cylinder gas needed to cook our food, dogs' food, and to sterilize surgical instruments. To get to our nearest fax machine, long-distance telephone service and supply of diesel for our jeep is an hour's high-risk drive up a narrow mountain road with 36 hair-pin bends and buses and trucks coming down with gears grinding and brakes failing.

In spite of these day-to-day difficulties and the enormous animal treatment caseload that on many days is like a war-zone emergency "mash" hospital, Deanna says, "No animal is ever turned away."

I don't get to India or see my wife as often as I would like, but I am proud to be associated with IPAN. In spite of the initial obstacles and the probably inevitable local minority opposition that is now behind us, thanks to Deanna's courage and tenacity, I see IPAN as becoming a model project for other rural communities. In those rural communities located in and around wildlife preserves still rich in biodiversity and rare and endangered animal and plant species, and where there is a large population of domestic animals in need of veterinary care, providing such care not only helps improve indigenous peoples' health and wealth. It also helps protect wildlife whose numbers are periodically decimated by diseases like rabies, distemper, and foot and mouth disease that they contract from a neglected domestic animal population. It is a tragic irony that in many of the world's last remaining "hot spots" of biodiversity -- regions rich in wild flora and fauna -- there is human population explosion, loss of wildlands, excessive numbers of livestock, compounded by human greed and corruption. We see the poor getting poorer as rich investors purchase farm and pasture land to set up guest lodges and for illegally irrigated crop production enterprises that are used to launder "black" money and as tax write-offs. The landless poor are forced to encroach on forest and wildlife preserves, engaging in poaching, illegal grazing, farming and extraction of forest resources for firewood and other purposes. We have documented tribals being paid by one entrepreneur to harvest forest resources nonsustainably, destroying entire trees. This enterprise is actually subsidized by European donor agencies dedicated to sustainable development and unaware that their moneys have been used to build a guest lodge and jeeps for eco-tourism. Corrupt land deals are made by others ostensibly to set up schools and other facilities for tribals which serve as a cover for a variety of nefarious activities that leave the poor poorer and ultimately disenfranchized. These problems in the Nilgiris are not insurmountable, and there is much left that can and must be saved.

The greatest miracle that IPAN has accomplished to date is the following transformation. When we first came to the villages and saw the sad plight of so many sick, injured and starving animals, the people seemed to be callously indifferent. Mange-ridden and maggot-infested dogs were often kicked and stoned. But after seeing how we cared for such animals in the street from our jeep that we stock with basic veterinary supplies and equipment, we saw a dramatic change in the people. People started to take us to treat animals in need, sometimes keeping them secure until we came. Clearly, when there is no one and no resources available to care for sick and injured animals, people turn a blind eye to animal suffering. Where there is no hope, there is no compassion.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this project is to witness the wonder and appreciation in children and the poor and the elderly when their dogs, puppies, calves, cows, bullocks, goats, kids, sheep, and lambs are made well. But best of all is to be greeted by the animals themselves, especially the dogs and the old cows who show in their eyes their gratitude and trust.

This work must continue, and with strong local support and donations from people around the world who care for people, animals and nature, it will.